Katinka Bacskai : Teachers of Reformed Schools

This paper presents an empirical study conducted in 2007 about the teachers and the organizational atmosphere of the reformed academic secondary schools in Hungary. Reformed academic secondary schools are situated in the underdeveloped regions of the country, where the rate of Calvinists is high. Most of their students come from families with low social status, living in rural areas, and the parents are often unemployed. However, the students of these schools are high achievers in the course of their later education. Previous quantitative research results suggest that it is the teachers who make a crucial contribution to these students’ continuing academic success. It is therefore important to know the characteristics, norms and values of this teacher population. In the study presented, a questionnaire was used to build a data base of 169 representative samples and compare it with national data sets that include information from nondenominational schools as well. The characteristics of teachers of religious schools are in the focus, i.e. how they differ from or resemble the general characteristics of the national teacher community. 38 % of the subjects in the survey were male, which is much higher than the national ratio for secondary academic schools (28.7%) in the academic year of 2005/6. Responses show that subjects consider instruction as the most important task of a teacher in a reformed school, forming students’ character and paying attention to their spiritual progression as second and third, followed by community forming, organizing leisure activities and administration. 65% of respondents indicated such experience. When comparing their present and previous workplace(es) on five point Likert scales, subjects judged their present workplace more favorably than the previous ones in all the aspects given. What they considered outstandingly better was the school climate, the staff, as well as the management of reformed schools. Furthermore, they judged students’ behavior as being better, too.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 108. Number 4. 359-378. (2008)

Levelezési cím / Address for correspondence: Bacskai Katinka, Debreceni Egyetem, Neveléstudományok Intézete, 4032 Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1.

 
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